


Powder and Poison

by ofstarstuff (Caeliat)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, intensely terrible lady villains who are also intensely shippable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-10-01 20:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20398732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caeliat/pseuds/ofstarstuff
Summary: Vox Machina may have hidden Whitestone from prying dragons, but there are powers with prior knowledge of the city. When Dr. Anna Ripley infiltrates Whitestone during the Conclave arc, she encounters someone she did not expect.





	Powder and Poison

**Author's Note:**

> This is the initial result of late-night conversations with kimabutch on tumblr about how highly competent, brilliant, amoral female villains are entirely too appealing, and about how this show has given us a multitude of badass lady villains with a lot of pairing potential. Or, as the-ewok-hunter eloquently put it:
> 
> "What’s better than shooting my enemies with a gun? Shooting my enemies with a gun while riding an ancient dragon who is also my wife."

She’s been in Whitestone for a few days, trying to replenish her supplies. Black powder she can get elsewhere, but residuum? Nowhere else has such fine materials. She would know. So here she is, trying to get it at the source, hoping to sneak her way into his workshop (her workshop) and into the distillery beneath the city. So many things had been left behind.

She has learned the new patterns of the city. Took on the guise of a servant, a refugee. They need people, they need bodies, and so they put her to work. She watches and waits. Perhaps when they leave again. Then she will be able to return to her work.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

The halfling stops in his tracks, looks up at her. “I beg your pardon?”

It was the boots. Not enough road dust, and when she had overheard the hurried report he gave to the de Rolo girl, the numbers did not add up. She had worried at that itch for an hour, and now here he was, walking down the deserted hallway with his conspicuously clean boots.

Dr. Anna Ripley leans against the door frame to the chamber she had been ostensibly cleaning. “You heard me. There is no teleportation circle in the city. I had to walk here, like all the other refugees they didn’t bring themselves. And they are not here right now. When did you arrive in Whitestone, Master Emring?”

He brushes nonexistent dust off his red vest, looks her up and down, taking in her castle servant garb. “You must be mistaken. If you’ll excuse me.” He starts to walk by, stops again. The woman doesn’t speak like a servant. Doesn’t stand like one, either.

He gives her a third look. At her disguise. Past it.

“Walk with me.”


End file.
